PESHAWAR, Dec 9: A two-member bench of the Peshawar High Court has directed the provincial health department to issue a notification for migration of two students to the Khyber Medical College within a day, failing which arrest warrants of the secretary and other officials would be issued.

The bench, comprising Justice Malik Hamid Saeed and Justice Fazalur Rehman Khan, ordered on Tuesday a deputy secretary of the department to produce the notification before the court on Thursday.

The contempt of court petition was filed by Akber Khan, a student of the Ayub Medical College, Abbottabad, and Zeeshan Ahmad, student of Gomal Medical College, Dera Ismail Khan.

At the very outset of the proceedings the bench was informed by Advocate Qazi Mohammad Anwer, counsel of the two students, that the department had not complied with the court order and the officials were reluctant to obey it.

During the previous hearing the bench had directed an additional advocate-general that the court order should be obeyed till Dec 9, and in case of non-compliance the health department secretary should appear in person.

A deputy secretary appeared before the bench and informed that the secretary was out of the country.

The bench observed that the department had twice given undertaking that it would follow the court’s order, but had not been obeying it.

The secretary informed that they had sent a summary to the NWFP chief minister regarding migration of students and had erroneously not mentioned the names of the two petitioners in it.

The bench observed that it was not the fault of the court and the department should correct its mistake.

The secretary, in his comments, had claimed that according to the admission policy migration could only be allowed by the competent authority which was the chief minister.

The petitioners had earlier filed a writ petition in which they had requested the court to order their migration to KMC, Peshawar, as vacant seats were available there.

A two-member bench of the high court on March 27 accepted their writ petition and directed the respondents including the health department to process their cases for migration.

However, the authorities did not follow the order following which the petitioner filed the instant contempt of court petition.

On Oct 1, the high court directed the additional advocate- general that the order should be obeyed in 15 days.

The petitioners claimed that since the order, issued on Oct 1, the government had migrated a number of students on three different dates, but the petitioners were not migrated.

He stated that seven students were migrated on Oct 15, whereas some of the students were migrated on Oct 24 and Nov 8.